A boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, opened the front door and came out. He wore a black jacket and trousers, with the corner of a white handkerchief jutting from his pocket. His brown hair was slicked back from his wide forehead and his eyes stared straight in front of him as he came through the front gate and closed it carefully behind him. He carried a bowler hat, which Ellen thought strange for someone so young, and placed it carefully on his head.

She watched him walk straight-backed past their window until he reached the road, when he turned left and out of sight from his home, and then, oddest of all, he threw the bowler up in the air and gave a jump, kicking his heels as he caught it.

Ellen laughed out loud and Sarah came to find out why she was laughing. ‘I’ve just seen a young man throwing his hat in the air,’ she said. ‘It looked so funny.’

‘That was Robbie,’ Sarah said. ‘Julia’s brother. He does it every morning.’

Ellen turned to Sarah; the child was very perceptive. ‘Who is Julia?’ she asked.

‘She lives there.’ Sarah pointed to the cottage opposite. ‘She’s a grown-up girl, older than us. The house with the little cat. Her mother won’t let her bring her in, cos she’s having babies and might make a mess. I said we’d have one of them when she gets them and that you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Oh, and how do you know about this? Have you spoken to Julia?’

Sarah nodded, and then Mary came to join in the conversation. ‘We talk to her when her mama goes out in an afternoon. We stay inside our garden,’ Mary added quickly, as they’d had instructions not to go out of the gate, ever, unless one of their parents was with them. ‘The day she told us about the baby cats you were in ’kitchen and Dada was asleep in ’chair. And Thomas was as well, on his knee.’

‘Kittens,’ Ellen said automatically. ‘Baby cats are called kittens. I see. And where is Robbie going when he throws his hat in the air?’

‘To work,’ Sarah said.

‘In a h’office,’ Mary added, not to be outdone. ‘But he doesn’t like it. It’s just that his mama says he has to, cos his dada who’s gone to heaven used to work there and said he had to.’

Well, my goodness, Ellen thought. Such a lot of information from my observant children. I must look out for Julia. ‘Is she nice?’ she asked. ‘Julia?’

‘She’s very nice,’ Sarah said solemnly. ‘We asked her if she’d like to come in and play wi’ us, but she said better not as she hadn’t been invited. We said we’d invite her but she said it had to be a grown-up person.’